Joany
Badenhorst

Joany Badenhorst is Australia’s premier female Para-snowboarder.

However, despite achieving selection to two Australian Paralympic Teams, she has never competed at a Paralympic Games.

After just missing selection for the London 2012 Paralympic Games in Para-athletics, Joany was approached by Paralympics Australia to transfer to Para-snowboard. Devastatingly, just hours before her first race at the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games, she crashed on a final training run and broke her patella, dislocated her knee and collapsed her hip.

The crash only strengthened her resolve, and at the 2016-2017 IPC Snowboard World Cup Finals in PyeongChang, South Korea, Joany reached the final of the women’s snowboard cross SB-LL2 and won the World Cup Crystal Globe. She won World Cup Crystal Globes for the most points won in the women’s banked slalom SB-LL2 and the most points won overall for the 2017-2018 season, and was among Australia’s top medal hopes to break a 16-year Paralympic Winter Games gold medal drought at the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Games.

Joany was appointed co-captain of the 2018 Australian Paralympic Team with Para-alpine skier Mitchell Gourley, and the Australian flag-bearer for the Opening Ceremony. But in a horrific stroke of bad luck, Joany injured her knee during a training run in PyeongChang and was ruled out of the Games.

In September 2019, Joany announced her retirement from elite competition and is now focussed on completing a Bachelor of Journalism and pursuing a career in the media.